The Challenge

The organisation had a strong reputation and broad course offering, but lacked a holistic, evidence-based view of the student experience across the full lifecycle from exploration and enrolment through to completion and employment.

While individual teams held partial insights, there was:

• No single, shared view of the end-to-end student journey

• Limited understanding of how experiences differ across student types

• Inconsistent activation of student voice in decision-making

• Growing pressure to improve retention, engagement, and outcomes

Leadership needed a student-centred foundation to guide experience design, service improvement, and prioritisation.

The Goal

The objective of the engagement was to create a clear, validated Student Experience Journey that would:

• Reflect students’ real lived experiences, not assumed processes

• Identify critical moments that shape engagement and success

• Highlight where experiences break down or create unnecessary friction

• Distinguish different student needs through clear personas

• Provide a practical tool that could be used across the organisation

This work was designed to inform action, not just document insight.

Our Approach

We led a qualitative, student-led discovery, combining research rigour with practical synthesis.

Key elements included:

1. Student-Centred Research

• Facilitated multiple structured feedback sessions with a diverse mix of students

• Ensured representation across study modes, life stages, and backgrounds

• Focused discussions on lived experience rather than institutional processes

The research deliberately prioritised depth of insight over volume to surface meaningful patterns.

2. Journey Mapping

Insights were synthesised into a clear end-to-end Student Experience Journey, covering:

• Pre-study (exploration, application, enrolment)

• Study (onboarding, learning, support, placements)

• Post-study (completion, employment, personal outcomes)

The journey reflected how students actually perceive their experience — not how services are structured internally.

3. Persona Development

To avoid a “one-size-fits-all” view of students, we developed a small set of learning personas representing distinct motivations, needs, and risks.

Each persona highlighted:

• Different drivers of engagement

• Different friction points across the journey

• Different types of support required to succeed

This allowed the organisation to think in terms of experience design, not averages.

The Solution

The engagement delivered a Student Experience Journey Framework, including:

• A clear, validated end-to-end journey map

• Identification of critical experiences that most strongly influence student outcomes

• A small set of practical student personas grounded in real research

• A shared language for discussing student experience across teams

• A foundation for future experience design, prioritisation, and measurement

The outputs were intentionally designed to be:

• Accessible to non-research specialists

• Reusable across strategy, service design, and delivery teams

• Capable of being refreshed over time

Results & Impact

The work created several important outcomes:

• A shared, organisation-wide understanding of the student experience

• Stronger alignment between strategy, service design, and student needs

• Clear visibility of where experience improvements would have the greatest impact

• A shift from anecdotal views of students to evidence-based decision-making

• A durable foundation for future experience and service transformation work

Most importantly, the organisation now had a student-led lens through which to view decisions and trade-offs.

Key Takeaway

Improving experience starts with understanding it properly.

By grounding strategy and design in real student journeys and lived experience, organisations can move beyond assumptions and design services that genuinely support engagement, retention, and success.